Distributor Spotlight: E-Finity Distributed Generation
Tell us about your organization’s history/story—how did it get started, who was involved and why was the business pursued?
E-Finity was founded in 1990 to provide energy efficiency services in the mid-Atlantic states of America. We focused primarily on energy efficient lighting upgrades that significantly reduced customer’s energy costs. Over the next several years E-Finity attracted other energy efficient products to enhance our offering including promoting onsite power utilizing Parallon Microturbine technology. In 2007 E-Finity Distributed Generation was formed and joined the Capstone family putting 100% of its efforts to being the best Capstone Distributor in the World.
Today, we have three offices and a dedicated team of 30 people including a core group of quality application engineers and salespeople that focus on power generation solutions which include Microturbines, Solar Panels, Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) tied together with our customized PLC Control system that make up our Microgrid Solution.
What region(s) do you serve?
We began with the mid-Atlantic region, specifically New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia and grew our client base. We quickly gained a reputation for peak performance and 24-hour service response giving our clients “The Power to be Independent”. With this success E-Finity was offered the Southeastern US and Caribbean territories to represent Capstone. Today we maintain a fleet of over 800 Turbines throughout the U.S. and Caribbean, with 90% of our customers under long term Factory Protection Plans (FPP) service agreements.
Are there particular industries or markets you serve?
We seek customers in Oil & Gas, Commercial, Industrial, Healthcare, Hospitality and most recently Cannabis Cultivation and Processing Facilities. Within these channels, we work closely with gas and electric utilities so that they are aware of our technology and integration services. We mainly promote our offering to Gas Utilities to increase their “burner-tip” gas sales.
What are the key services you provide?
Three divisions Sales, Application Engineering and Best In-Class Service are the keys to making E-Finity a sought-after power plant provider. Our sales team has the primary focus of educating clients on the power generation equipment and service we provide. Sales is backed up with our unique team of in-house application engineers and project managers, that take ownership of creating a customized power plant that integrates into the customers facility. After start-up the power plant is handed off to our service team that provides 24x7 monitoring and response to ensure peak power plant performance. Our projects fall under the categories of Primary Power, CHP, CCHP, Microgrid, Solar, and Renewable Fuels.
What are some energy goals your customers typically want to achieve? How do you help your customers achieve them?
In the mid-Atlantic, it’s all about energy savings and return on investment with resilience tossed in. We leverage incentives and natural gas supply for combined heat and power (CHP & CCHP) applications for those customers. We’ve accomplished every type of combined heat and power application, from direct dry applications, hot water, and chilled water applications to steam and combinations of all of them.
In the Caribbean, the need is about reliable prime power delivered at low-cost. Using gaseous LPG & LNG fuels combined with solar and BESS we drive down fuel burn and lower customers’ operating costs. For example, a customer might pay over $.50 per kilowatt-hour with un-reliable utility power and still lose power as frequently as daily. With a well-designed Capstone Microgrid Power System, we can generate power for $.20-25 per kilowatt hour and provide clean, ultra-reliable power. This is a win-win for the customer and island environmentalists because our systems have ZERO oil to store or dispose of.
Why did you decide to become a Capstone distributor?
We knew about the technology and Capstone for ten years before becoming a distributor. Even when E-Finity was doing lighting upgrades in the nineties, we were impressed with the technology and the concept of onsite power generation concept and remote monitoring. When we had the chance to access the product line, and partner with a great company like Capstone, we were all in. Our goal was to be number one in the World and grow a huge fleet of operating turbines. And that's what we've done.
What do you wish companies understood better about their energy-related needs?
It's become a real challenge for customers to understand that you can't jump directly to renewables to meet their energy goals, just not possible yet today. If they want reliable inexpensive power, they've still got to use fossil fuels. There's no way to accomplish the World's energy needs, let alone a business' needs, with just wind and solar. Not yet, anyway. Renewables can certainly be part of the mix in varying percentages, but we need a bridge fuel and the best one, in terms of being the cleanest burning, is natural gas.
Do you have a favorite project/installation you could share?
Magan's Junction in St. Thomas USVI's is my favorite right now. It is a terrific microgrid project that we designed, installed, and operate. Magan's is a newly constructed low-income residential community featuring one and two bedroom apartments. The first phase of the community included 64 units that needed clean reliable power immediately and it wasn't going to get it with just wind, solar, and battery storage alone.
For this phase we installed (5) C65 Microturbines and 60 kW's of solar that provided 100% of the site's electricity. After the community expanded with the addition of another 45-unit, E-Finity tied in (2) more C65 Microturbines with HRM's that provide 100% of the domestic hot water to the buildings, an additional 40 kW's of solar and an 800 kWh Battery Energy Storage System. Today the standalone power plant provides 100% of the site power and is tucked into E-Finity's FPP fleet.
The power plant is remotely monitored and controlled by E-Finity's m-TIM Controller that allows for troubleshooting and repairing faults without immediately needing to dispatch service personnel to the island. Through our m-TIM Controller our customer Jackson Development has access to real time power production information as well as fuel consumption allowing them to calculate their actual kWh costs.
Today Magan's Junction is a terrific example of a total Microgrid Solution that provides clean, low cost, reliable power, the new standard for the Virgin Island Housing Authority. We are super proud of it.
To learn more about E-Finity Distributed Generation, visit https://www.e-finity.com/
